Every now and then we are reminded about the millions of people who have died (and keep dying) from HIV & AIDS all over the world, since the awareness of the virus’ existence in the beginning of the 1980s.
Lately it is however another virus that gets most of the media coverage around the globe. An epidemic of Ebola virus was detected in West Africa earlier this year, affecting thousands of people. Even though we have good protections as staff member of UN agencies, it is very important to know how to protect our health and safety. It is sometimes easy to think that those things only happen to others far away from us. HIV & AIDS still exist amongst us and the Ebola virus is close to all of us in this globalized world.
The Director of UNESCO Jakarta Office, Dr. Hubert Gijzen, opened a one hour session about the Pandemic Preparedness Plan and the UN Cares programme on the 22nd of August 2014. The session was organized by the ADM unit at the UNESCO Jakarta Office, Indonesia.
The UN Pandemic Preparedness Plan Officer, Maria Meo gave information about the current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa. The presentation started off with the history of the virus and its believed origin. She presented the information regarding prevention, signs and symptoms. Maria also presented WHO’s travel advice as well as UN and the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) actions regionally so far. In the end of the presentation the participants asked questions. Several questions came up regarding the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa and how this affects Indonesia.
The session also contained an introduction to the UN Cares web page as well as to the programme. A part of the presentation was assigned to answer questions about the UN cares members and the purpose of the UN cares programme.
33 members of the UNESCO Office in Jakarta participated in the meeting. Information regarding UN Cares work on voluntary counseling and testing, male and female condoms as well as the usefulness of the PEP Kits was presented. At the end of the session participants had the opportunity to ask questions. Quite a lot of questions came up regarding the use of the PEP kit and how to access them if ever needed while on a field trip in remote areas.
The public needs information about health and safety to better understand how to protect themselves, and so does the UN staff. Similar sessions should be held in the future to create a greater understanding of the services that the organization provides as well as how to react in critical situations such as those we now see in West Africa.
Source: UN Care Newsletter - Jakarta
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